Stock video rejected for audio

Shutterstock video rejected for audio: the three causes

The rejection reads: “Video contains unnecessary audio or audio that is potentially copyrighted.” Shutterstock’s audio article (15 July 2025) gives three causes:

• Audio added in post-production. Unacceptable for commercial and editorial content alike.
• Potentially copyrighted audio, such as music or sound effects.
• Dialogue, whether the speaker is on camera or in a voice-over. A commercial clip with dialogue is accepted only with a signed model release for the speaker.

Its technical requirements page adds the default: leave audio out unless it adds to the clip or the clip is editorial. The two examples Shutterstock shows as acceptable are a mountain stream with well-recorded water sound, and an editorial clip of snake charmers playing a pungi in Marrakesh, where the sound carries part of the story.

Audio rules by agency

Pond5 adds two cases of its own: 360 VR clips should carry no audio, and animations never should, since their sounds could not have been captured while filming.

Adobe’s three answers

Three Adobe help pages, three positions:

• Edit videos for submission (11 June 2026): “Adobe does not accept videos with audio. Remove any embedded audio, such as ambient noise, dialogue, or soundtracks, before uploading.” The checklist on its submit page agrees: “You’ve removed any redundant content, noise, and audio.”
• Video do’s and don’ts (27 March 2026): preserve ambient sound if its quality is acceptable, get model releases from all identifiable speakers or remove the audio, remove unusable sound, and never add music or sound effects. “It is perfectly acceptable to submit clips without audio.”
• Presets in Premiere (11 June 2026): Adobe ships export presets with and without audio, and says that “in most cases, Stock clips are better without audio,” with a roaring lion as the exception.

Common situations

Adobe also asks you to remove sound “that could be trademarked,” such as a jingle or a branded alert tone, even where ambient audio is otherwise allowed.

When to keep the sound

For Shutterstock and Pond5, a sound track is worth keeping only when it passes every one of these tests:

1. It was recorded on location, during the shot.
2. It adds information: water, wind, animals, machines, a crowd, a ritual.
3. It holds no music and no speech anyone could recognize.
4. It was recorded with a good microphone at a proper level. Pond5 asks you to disable camera audio when quality is a problem on location.
5. It has no clicks, handling noise or wind buffeting, and no voices of the crew.

Pond5’s acceptable examples are a wildlife clip with distinct animal sounds and an archival speech by a historical figure; Adobe’s is a roaring lion, which says more with sound than a yawning lion without it. Pond5 also accepts ambient city sound for commercial use, such as traffic, police whistles and indistinguishable voices, provided there is no recognizable music or speech. If a clip fails any test, export it without audio.

If you plan to keep sound, plan it on set. Shutterstock’s advice is to decide between the on-board and external microphones before you shoot, control the audio settings, record clean ambient sound and edit with headphones. Pond5 says it “considers audio quality just as highly as video,” so a clip with poor sound can be refused even when the picture is good. Editorial clips follow their own rules, covered in the editorial footage guide.

Sound in editorial clips

Editorial footage gets more room for sound, within limits. Pond5 names editorial content as an exception to its “remove the audio” preference, gives an archival speech by a historical figure as an acceptable example, and says editorial footage with music may be approved if the music was captured during filming. Shutterstock’s technical page allows audio on editorial clips, and its audio article shows the Marrakesh snake charmers as a case where the sound “contributes to its editorial value.”

Two limits hold everywhere. Sound added in post is refused for editorial as well as commercial clips, and Shutterstock and Pond5 both refuse editorial content altered in post-production. Keep the sound as recorded, with no music bed, no sweetening and no voice-over explaining the scene; the facts go in the caption instead. Adobe is out of this case: it says it does not accept traditional editorial content.

Voices and releases

A voice identifies a person. Adobe counts someone as recognizable “by their face, voice, tattoos, clothing, or even specific surroundings,” and lists “audio clips with identifiable voices” among the cases that need a model release. Shutterstock accepts commercial dialogue only with the speaker’s release, and Pond5 requires a release for recognizable voices. A person off camera whose words can be heard counts too.

Each speaker needs a release of their own. Shutterstock requires a separate model release for each recognizable person and refuses a single file holding several, and Adobe refuses group releases. For a minor, a parent or guardian signs. The paperwork is explained in model and property releases for stock video.

Export without audio

Muting or deleting clips in the timeline is not enough. Adobe notes that a clip exported from a timeline with its audio removed still carries a silent audio track, which buyers then have to unlink and delete. Turn audio off in the export settings instead:

• Premiere: choose an Adobe Stock preset “without Audio” (H.264 or ProRes 422 HQ, for HD, UHD or 4K DCI), or uncheck the audio option in custom settings.
• DaVinci Resolve: on the Deliver page, open the Audio tab and uncheck Export Audio.
• ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i input.mov -c copy -an output.mov drops every audio stream and copies the video stream as it is, with no re-encode.

If a clip keeps its sound for Shutterstock or Pond5, export a second, silent file for Adobe and give it its own file name, so each agency receives the right version. Then confirm the result. The free video spec checker lists the audio tracks in a file along with its resolution, frame rate and codec. The other rejection causes are on the rejections overview.